A Piece of Peace
by Aiko Isari
Summary: What do you do when your ultimate wingman is your son? This is the question Hikari ponders over coffee all while thinking of Motomiya Daisuke. And what Daisuke thinks about his son as well, as they grow older and time ticks on. A My Sanctuary spin-off.
1. prologue - infancy

_Warnings: Death of a parent, murder, guilt, survivor's guilt, past graphic violence. This starts off sad I'm sorry._

* * *

prologue – infancy

When Yagami Hikari told him she was pregnant all those years ago, Motomiya Daisuke's mind had gone blank as a sheet of paper.

Miyako used to joke that was his normal state of being, but he honestly never stopped thinking about things like this. About people, about the group that existed, and had only grown. Sometimes, in the dead of night, he just listened to his son snore and think, would any of this had happened without V-mon?

Most people would say, who knows, fate doesn't work that way, or something. Ken would tell him "of course you would be at this point, you're _you,_ " which even made Daisuke wince sometimes because Ken wasn't idealistic but he was as loyal and solid as they came, so how could you ruin that? And besides, it felt good to hear from someone who was still one of the best in his business say without hesitation "You've got this."

So when he heard Hikari say those magic words, his mind went blank and confusion laced across his entire being. He did not get this. Hikari-chan was-

Not interested in men. Not sexually anyway. So how-

"It's a long story," she had said, and looked dreadfully, dreadfully exhausted.

And so, Daisuke had drawn on his strength and hadn't asked, had corralled a furious, lovestruck Noriko (and boy wasn't that him?) into his apartment.

It hadn't mattered then. He'd been married for a year and a half and they'd been working together, he and his wife. He'd loved her pretty damn hard, and she him. And it, at the time had been all that mattered. She'd been willing to travel, expose their kid to new things, even as an infant. He'd even been able to help Hikari-chan, financially sure, calls at three in the morning as she wept quietly to not wake Noriko, gathering unsent letters to Tailmon to put into a box.

It wasn't hard now for him to close his eyes and remember her face while she held her son. At least now there was no vice squeezing his heart every time he thought of it, every time he looked at her. That first year he had sat and thought, over new recipes and careless taste testing because Nat-chan - Rhythm- understood him, understood him better than she did herself. Which was ridiculous in its own way so… what could he do about it?

… Nothing now.

"Dad?" His son's voice jolted him out of his thoughts, soft but steady. He stared down at the young boy. He was getting taller, not as tall as Daisuke had been at that age, but he was getting taller. "We need to go."

Daisuke glanced around the apartment, decorated more in flowers and life and things that required the sun than he would have put in the home by himself. "Yeah," he agreed. "Just trying to remember if we watered them or not."

"I did." His son's voice was calmer than it should have been, steady. "They'll be fine dad."

 _You'll be all right, Daiki, Daisuke, if it's the last thing I do._

And it had been.

V-mon picked up Chibimon from the coffee table. "Let's go, Daisuke."

Daisuke gave the apartment one last look. Then he nodded and held open the door.

"Let's go," he agreed.

The words didn't hold the same lightness they had at the age of eleven. If anything, they were too heavy now. But he said them anyway.

…

His wife had no body to bury. No birth or death certificate, no relatives to mourn her. The relative who could have was the one who had killed her. And Daisuke didn't know what he would do if he found that guy.

It would have been fine if he was just a rabble rouser or something, just one of those people (and digimon) who saw the slowly melding worlds as something bad (after all these incidents, Daisuke wouldn't blame him, he really wouldn't). It would have been fine if he stuck to protesting, to fights in the digital world, to convincing others.

Not trying to kill him. Not trying to kill his son. Not doing- what he had.

And he was still at large. Still running free. Locked out of earth for now, but that was small comfort when everyone was getting digivices. Everyone was getting partners and not everyone was having to train them, not everyone was choosing to. And ideally that was beautiful. That was good. That was free will, that was what they wanted more than anything else…

but now Daisuke wanted to butcher free will and get an army down because if _he_ went out and did this there would probably be nothing left of the fellow and maybe nothing left of V-mon or himself and that would leave Dai with everyone else but not him.

And he shouldn't have those thoughts, he _didn't_ have those thoughts but maybe if he'd had just a few more of them his wife would be here, alive. Laughing off the whole debacle and failing to make the basic strawberry waffles.

He kept stepping forward, feet tingling with numbness. Dai was a step behind him, his Chibimon in his arms. He didn't have to look behind him to see the somber, worn out expression on his face. He couldn't stand seeing that right now. His son needed to smile. He'd… he'd have to work hard at making that happen again.

The Digital World was quiet today. At least this clearing was, a small place full of people in black. His friends and family were standing like soldiers as he walked. He carried her trademark hat, comically small on the outside for anything more than her scalp. He carried it tight in his arms, like when Dai had once fallen onto his head from a large tree and the blood had been all over and-

She had been the one to reassure him then. His eyes blurred. He blinked the water away and took another hard step forward. A song reached his ears from steps behind, soft and old from the trees, the small pond on his other side. And Daisuke _ached._

Rhythm, his wife, was dead and gone. And no matter the world, she was never coming back.

"Daisuke-kun."

His name brought him from the reverie, the sound snapping through him like her voice, that matched him bolster for bolster.

But it wasn't her voice at all. The woman facing him was much taller, her forehead reaching his eyes. And she was looking at him with the smallest of knowing smiles.

"Auntie Emi," Dai managed to choke out. He didn't fly towards to, but his legs itched to jump, to leap and crush her with his young, thin arms. But he paused, didn't because-

There was an egg in her arms. A familiar egg, speckled red and colored a strange soft green. His heart jumped in his chest.

"How?" he whispered. Dai went stiff behind him, but his face was creased in a puzzled frown.

"I figured calling and telling you would be in poor taste," Emi admitted before shaking her head. "I don't know, honestly. It just happened this morning. The worlds may be so close together that she just reformed by herself. But…" She exhaled. "It won't be her, Daisuke-kun. There's no way that she could be."

"I… I didn't think so." But miracles could happen. The egg pattern was almost exactly the same. Maybe she would hatch out again and remember him.

But they weren't partners, They would never be partners. It… It might not be the same. And she would be a small creature all over again. Her time passing as an adult human, or a facsimile of one, was gone.

"Still." He made himself smile, like he was bracing for the cold of winter. "Let me know when it hatches, okay?"

Emi smiled, and hers was much more real. "Of course I will."

They spoke quietly together for a few more minutes as they reached the center of the clearing. Then Daisuke felt his son stiffen up beside him.

The next minute, Dai had torn away and tackled one of the mourners standing in line. Seconds flickered by and Dai was howling, Chibimon and V-mon scrambling after him. For a moment, Daisuke felt his heart reach the back of his throat because that was him wasn't it that was that bastard-

"Falcor stop!" The voice cut through the hope, the vision, the bloody red searing past his eyes and he saw one arm yank firmly on orange fur and Daisuke collected himself to go help.

It took himself, V-mon and one good arm to get the furious large cat off of Dai and his shirt was in tatters and streaked in thin red. For a moment, Daisuke felt nothing but concern and anger and he whirled around again because everything was going so fast-

Then he saw Yagami Kei with bruised cheeks and a broken arm, one good eye uncovered and raw red with any free skin bandaged and his best friend helping him keep the giant angry cat still.

"I'm so sorry, Motomiya-san," the teenager wheezed. "She overreacted, I'm so sorry about her-"

And finally the anger came back but maybe it was the wrong target or something. "No," he managed to say. "No, it's all right. That's on Dai."

"Dad!" his son shouted and Daisuke turned on him and he shouldn't have. He should have breathed first but it all hurt so _much._

"You attacked him, what did you think she would do, watch?"

Dai flared up, face red as his own and hurt magnifying his eyes to three times their size. "It's all his fault!" and there was spittle flying and pain there and it wasn't right. Dai had been following Kei since his son could crawl he shouldn't look at him like that. "If he'd just talked to us, if he'd been faster, mom would be here!"

Daisuke didn't have to look but he did. He saw the crumpling expression, the guilt and pain and misery and all of that unhappy bundle in Hikari's face, in Kei's face and that was the only thing that caused his fists to unclench.

Kei croaked out something, his voice hoarse and rough and Daisuke breathed this time. Breathed three times, ignored the onlookers.

"It was not his fault," he made himself say because he knew deep down it was true and that was the right, the adult thing to do in this situation. "It was that Digimon's and _no one else's._ We couldn't even stop what happened. Don't you blame your best friend for doing his job, which was save you."

The meicoomon in front of them was still hissing, even spitting a little.

Kei stumbled over to Dai and hugged him with his good arm. Daisuke couldn't make out what it was, but eventually, finally, his son started to cry, howling with all the strength his lungs had to offer.

Daisuke met Hikari's eyes and she smiled, that sad, knowing look of hers and that familiar flop in his chest spun like a fan on its base.

"I'm sorry," she mouthed at him.

 _So am I._ He didn't say it out loud, but he let the tears fall instead.

There was a tiny shudder by his fingertips, of the egg forced into his hands for a moment so Emi could play healer and peacemaker.

"Yeah," he told it, voice hoarse. "Yeah, that's it."

It shuddered again.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ Happy Belated Birthday Onix! This took a bit but I'm thinking you'll like it! Eventually. I hope so anyway. This is your otp after all! For all confused readers, this is a spinoff. It starts to deviate at a specific, as of yet _undiscussed_ plot point to be shown later in the series. But because it hasn't come up yet, I'm actually super free to play with this. This will however, cover a certain plot point that is definitely a spoiler. So take now, about... arc 2 or 3 of this, if you don't want to know a vital piece of backstory, please save this fic for when _Destati_ shows up. If you don't mind the spoiler... onward! But for now, let us focus on these idiots.

Challenges: Mega Prompts Quote Prompts 190, Song Time Challenge for Landscape by Solidemo, Christmas Advent 2016, write a gift fic, Christmas Advent 2017 day 19, write someone else's otp,


	2. one - patterns

_Warning for implications of suicidal thoughts, grief process, depression, kids cursing._

* * *

 _one - patterns_

Motomiya Daiki wanted something to change.

Every day had been the same before. But somehow it had been better. Somehow, it had been much more worth doing, when his mom was still alive. And maybe it was the her shaped hole that made everything seem so bad, really. The her shaped hole and everything that came from it.

Like, for instance, him officially having to live in Odaiba again. As the Yagami neighbor. Like for instance, his school days and soccer practice no longer interrupted with random lunches, or texts from a clearly outdated parent, or little videos of shopping or-

Just so many little things were gone.

His dad still made dinner with him every night, showing him new techniques. Weekends were still spent racing across fields with Chibimon and studying for Tamer exams with Taesuke, who was still hopeless at teamwork, no matter what he said he wasn't.

And Daiki still watered the plants, picked the tomatoes and composted the rotten food every few weeks. But it was harder now, especially with no one to stop Chibimon from trying to eat the moldy lettuce.

Auntie Emi was there more, of course, and had been ever since for the past half a year. But she always brought the quiet egg and her kids the quietest little girl and boy Daiki had ever met. They helped too, and they were always more willing to smile when he helped them. And they weren't blood related here. No one was.

But it wasn't the same entirely.

After all, Kei no longer came over. And that was his fault, and he knew it. He had pushed Kei away in public. The older teen wouldn't dare come near now and a part of him was sick every time he thought of calling him and apologizing.

But it was also Kei's fault.

Kei was a Chosen Child, and he hadn't told the family.

The adults had known of course, and not said anything. They had known and known and let him get away with getting hurt all by himself. They had treated him like the Digital World had treated them… and Mom was dead now, all cause of it. Cause he was too overworked.

So it was the adults' fault too.

And it was grandfather's fault for being the one to do it.

He remembered the coolness of those eyes on his face, huddled in the back of a closet with two chibimon and pressing on his father. He remembered the sneer made with a misshapen mouth-

"Dai?"

Auntie Emi's voice from outside the door. Startled, sent the blood and anger washing away. "Soccer practice was canceled. Your coach had an accident. You can sleep in for a little while longer."

"An accident?" He repeated. Suddenly he didn't want to be in bed, staring at a ceiling his parents had painted to look like the ocean for him. He had never wanted to be anywhere less in that moment. "What happened?" Daiki threw himself out of bed. "What kind of accident auntie? What happened?" Chibimon grumbled from the floor, flipping back onto his head, but it wasn't important. He'd recover. They both had hard heads.

He was out the door half-dressed and nearly smacked into her son. Koh looked at him with that familiar pair of orange pits and breezed around him without an apology, nor expecting one. He scowled and resumed his determined, rough strides towards where her voice had gone.

She was in the kitchen, of course. With Dad, who was lecturing lowly about the importance of the heat or something. And the egg -Mom's egg, he remembered with a jolt- was in Sayo's lap again, like it tended to be whenever auntie wasn't holding it, which nowadays was more and more often. Purple eyes gave him a once over and then he looked away.

Not for the first time, he made himself uncurl his fists and move away, more determinedly to his father and aunt. That was his mother reborn. Granted, she hadn't hatched yet, and Dad was sure that she never would hatch as herself but Dai wanted to think there would be a shot. But it wouldn't happen if some random girl kept holding the egg.

Not that telling her would do any good. She didn't seem to understand when people talked to her, let alone what they were saying

"Coach got into an accident?" His voice was a little too loud, a little too angry and each bite was in his throat and he had no idea what to do with the teeth. "What happened?"

"Nothing, Dai," Auntie replied, voice unfazed. "The man just took a tumble on his bicycle this morning and hit a passing Digimon. He'll be right as rain to come to next practice on Tuesday."

Dai felt himself deflate, shoulders slumping and the rush of energy shrinking into little more than a feeble ember. "Oh… right… sorry Auntie…"

His father turned back to him with a smile. And the smile made his blood curdle like spoiled milk. It was such a sad face, it made him sick. How was Dai supposed to be happy with his father making a face like that? He'd be happier if dad looked mad instead, like at the mourning ceremony, had been so pissed he was ready to hurl his own kid into demon claws or something!

"You're pretty fired up today," his dad said, poking the goggles on Dai's forehead. "Why don't you go take a stab at the training missions on the boards? It's the only thing Taesuke seems to think he can get away with not doing these days.

Daiki harrumphed. "Taesuke's a _dummy_." He said these words with fervor and it was true. He didn't know what was firing up his friend, but he just wanted to be awesome and show off because his partner _might_ have the chance to become a Royal Knight if they trained a certain way. That wasn't why you became a Chosen One, a hero.

That wasn't what their power was for. Even Tsukiko knew that.

"He's a dumb kid," Dai finished, trailing off and looking away.

"You're twelve," said a hoarse voice. "You're a dumb kid too," Koh finished as he carried Chibimon to Dai's hands. "Stupid."

Daiki felt red all up his shoulders. "And you're _seven_." He snatched Chibimon away, who grunted and bit his fingers before climbing up his shoulder. "And dumb. So shut it."

"Daiki." His father's voice was quiet, disappointed but not angry. Why wasn't he getting angry? Why was _he_ the bad guy again?

Koh looked at him with that thoughtful stare. Then he walked away, back to where Sayo sat. He patted the egg, following her hands as she rubbed it.

Weird kids, Dai thought. Freaking weird kids. Where did Auntie get them from?

As always, there was no answer.

His father's hand thumped onto his head, mussing up his already messy hair. "Come on, help me finish breakfast."

Dai winced, thoughts and words at war with each other. Then he nodded. "All right…"

Back to normal life. Back to that routine.

* * *

"Yagami, reporting."

Kei made himself stay still, made himself not jump away from the tingling sensation of the teleportation pads. Falcor yawned beside him, staying firmly up as a giant cat. "I'm so tired," she mumbled at his side.

"They're just giving us a scan," Kei reminded her. "My body's not all the way back to normal yet."

"Maybe if you hadn't been bowled over like a sack of potatoes you would be," his cat muttered, instantly awake enough for each fur to stand on end and to bare her teeth.

Kei let out another sigh. "Leave Dai alone."

She sniffed. "Not a chance, Kei. He didn't apologize. He used you. He is unworthy of being let alone. If he does it again…"

Kei let out a sigh and rubbed his eyes. "I won't let you do that, Falcor."

"I'll just maim him a little," said the stubborn creature, face twisting further with annoyance.

Kei made a face. "You will _not_."

"You're all set, Kei." The guard said from his monitor. "Just be careful on your way home now."

Kei agreed and devolved Falcor to a puppy he could carry, leaving as quickly as he could to pick up his school bag and get the hell out of the Union Offices. Hikarigaoka was bustling around him, windows blaring with advertisements, people with their bags and their digivice phones. The sun was starting to get lower in the sky. Kei ducked into the crowd, quick to lose himself in it. His leg twinged as he did and Kei forced it forward. It was almost healed now. So long as he kept taking it somewhat easy, he'd be all back to normal soon. As normal as a Yagami could be anyway.

If only he could help with healing someone else.

He stopped at the light, watching a cyclist go by, tightening his grip on Falcor. "Stop," he mumbled. "We're almost home."

"Just one bite," said the pup under her breath, glaring across the street. Kei reluctantly followed her eyes to see Motomiya Daiki with his Chibimon on his shoulder, tall shoulders back as he glowered at the much shorter Yagami Taesuke. Which the boy had to resent. Daiki had always towered over almost all of the youths, as his nana had put it. Taesuke, however, made up for his lack of height with sheer _presence_. Everyone knew when the boy was around and not everyone enjoyed the boy being around.

Except Daiki, and even that was starting to change it seemed like. They looked about ready to break each other's noses. Taesuke's Hackmon looked vaguely bored from his spot under a lamppost. Chibimon was tapping Daiki with a flipper, irritation filling his own ruby red eyes.

The light turned green, and for a moment Kei hesitated to cross. Then, the decision was made for him by someone roughly bumping into his back and nearly knocking him over. Kei hurried to go, feeling Falcor starting to tense and growl in his grip. "i'll put you in the digivice if you don't hush," he muttered, voice turning a little acidic.

"You wouldn't dare-" She squeaked her dismay as he tapped the screen of the device against her fur and sucked her in. Kei sighed in relief. She could leave but the fact that he'd done it would keep her sulking for at least the walk home.

He reached the part of the sidewalk, just in time to hear Taesuke snap, "You said you wanted to help me!" in that voice that teetered towards whiny that he got he when he was really, truly getting worked up. He was a sensitive kid, it couldn't be helped. "You're the one that said we needed a group!"

"I'm busy!" Daiki said in that way people got when they'd said something too many times in a row. "Something you wouldn't get."

"What'd you say?"

"That you're a lazy-"

Kei was really tempted to walk past them, because if he moved any closer it would be to knock the two boys' skulls together. And that would involve him in something that had nothing to do with me."

"You're just scared!" Taesuke's voice arced through the crowd as Kei slowed a little, pausing to check his suddenly vibrating phone. The younger boy sounded smug with realization. "You're just scared we can't do it!"

"Says the chicken who won't fight a person!"

"Oh I'll fight you!"

Kei gave up and whirled on his heels. He went over and slid past the people shaking their heads as he went by. "If you two are going to fistfight, don't do it in the middle of the street."

Taesuke jumped away and nearly slammed his back into the nearest terminal. "Kei! Be a little louder, would ya?!"

"Hard to be over you two yammering like jackrabbits," Hackmon grumbled. "Over a fat load of nothin'."

"It's not nothing!" both boys spat at the surly child. Hackmon merely chewed on a flower, utterly disinterested.

Taesuke turned to Kei, desperate to prove his point. Which was strange in itself. Tae, as far as Kei had known, didn't really _like_ him all that much for some reason Kei had yet to figure out. "Dai's not going to any of our group practices for Union! The test is in two weeks!"

"There's no point." Dai's grumble was muffled by his burgundy scarf and the fact that he refused to look Kei in the eye. "We'll either pass or we won't at this point. Just because he doesn't wanna study until the last minute doesn't mean the rest of us gotta cram with 'im."

"Everyone else is for it!" Taesuke crossed his arms. "Even Miya's going and she's not interested at all!"

"Miya would do anything to get closer to _him._ " This time Dai looked at Kei. Kei made himself look right back at him, refusing to be intimidated by surliness and general unpleasant behavior. Hirose was his best friend after all. There was no one quite like it. "Just like you want to get into Ka-"

Taesuke stomped on Daiki's foot hard enough to send the boy yelping and hopping away. This dislodged Chibimon, who Kei hurried to catch before he pretended to weigh as much as a dolphin when he landed. "You're gross!" Both boys' eyes were watering with tears for different reasons. "You're so gross Dai! You're a jerk!" And the younger one took off down the street, forcing Hackmon to go after him with a scowl.

"That was rude, Daiki," Kei said before he could stop himself. "You know he's not comfortable with that."

"World's full of uncomfortable things," Dai grumbled, righting himself against the lamppost. "he needs to get used to it."

"And now you're just being a snot," Kei muttered, holding out Chibimon. "You're twelve. You've known seven bad things in your life, and none of them excuse that."

Daiki looked at him. Finally. The boy had followed him around like a happy puppy until that day. Kei hadn't enjoyed it, but it had been better than this, a glaring, uncomfortable, miserable swot. "Not all of us have near-death experiences for fun, you know. We're not all used to _fucking_ it up."

Kei felt that, deep in his gut, and judging by the way Dai's eyes widened, he felt that one too. For a moment, Kei struggled, searched for the not wrong words, not the ones he wanted to say. But in the end, he had to say them anyway. "Then maybe you should tell Tae-kun that, instead of using me as a punching bag for something I _know_ is my fault. I can't fix it and I can't make it better. I don't need _you_ reminding me more than everyone else does."

Dai's chin wobbled. HE was twelve. He was twelve years old. "That was my mom!" he hissed the words like he was afraid the world actually cared. "You left her!"

"I saved you!" Kei's hands curled tight, starting to bleed afresh despite all of his efforts, he could never get his palms to not bleed easy anymore. "Do you have a problem with that?"

Daiki stared, really stared. Then he turned and ran, snatching his partner as he did so. Chibimon only looked defeated.

Kei's shoulders slumped, the fight leaving him. He sighed and stared off at the reddening sky. He was going to have to tell his parents about this.

He began the suddenly longer journey home.


End file.
